Windows 7: How to protect computer from hackers

Tips to protect from hackers and be safe online

Hackers normally attack with the intention of financial gain. There are many ways in which we can protect ourselves from the hackers. This article gives you some tips on how to protect yourself from the attacks from hackers. If you follow these guidelines, then you can protect your system from attacks of the hackers to the best extent.

Install Anti-Malware Software: The best method to avoid attacks from hackers is the installation of anti-malware software. Malware includes not only viruses, but all manners of spyware as well. There are many anti-malware softwares like Symantec Anti Virus, AVG anti Virus, Ad Aware and Malware Bytes are some of the best anti-malwares to be installed.

Update All Softwares: Many of us forget to update the softwares installed in our computers. Patching and updating software are very important in keeping up to date and closing off system vulnerabilities.

Delete Unknown E-Mails: Hackers use techniques such as spoofing and phishing to hurt innocent users. If you do not know the sender of the email, the you should delete that mail no matter how legitimate the email may seen. And if there is an attachment from an email of an unknown sender, then you should definitely delete such mails.

Never Click on Ads - We can see a number of advertisements in internet now a days. Most of them are interactive too. These interactive advertisements normally link to the malware infested websites that are used by the hackers. In addition, hackers may find vulnerabilities in third party applications such as Java or Flash that can be used to hack into your computer. That means an advertisement can be created that actually can exploit a vulnerability giving them access to your computer.

Run Anti-Malware Scans very Often: Just installing Anti-Malware will not solve the problem with hackers. You should run these anti virus softwares at least once in a week. You can set them to run periodically once in a week or daily. The best time to scan with anti virus programs is at night when you do not use the computer. Many of these anti-malware programs have a shutdown option once the work is completed, so you can start the program and sleep and it automatically shuts down the computer after scanning your computer

Don't connect Random Devices: USB Pen Drives are common now a days which is vulnerable to virus. The Malware can auto run by masking itself as an autorun.inf file. So use only the devices of your own and from trusted sources.
Normally Windows will automatically run the malware the minute an infect USB device is plugged into the computer.

If you still want to use the USB device from un known people, at least turn off the autorun settings on Windows. This can be done in Windows 7 like this. Go to Control Panel-->Hardware and Sound-->Auto play. You should uncheck the Auto play for all the devices and then click Save. In Windows Vista, go to your Control Panel-->Hardware and Sound-->Play CDs or other media automatically. Uncheck Use Autoplay for all media and devices and Click Save.

Remove Admin Rights For the Users: You can minimize the risk of malware being installed by removing administrative privileges to the user accounts including your own. When a malware tries to install itself, you will be alerted and will notify you that you cannot install a progrem without admn. rights. So you can use your admin account to install known softwares and uninstalling softwares etc. You should never surf the internet using your administrative account.

Install Firewall: Firewalls protect the users from in bound and outbound traffic. Many of us set up our firewall rules to prevent only inbound traffic. This is an oversight as outbound rules are also important. For example when a malware sent by a hacker manages to find data in our computer, the first thing it will do is try to send the data out, back to the hacker by looking for all available outbound connections it can find. By limiting outbound traffic, you will have effectively trapped the malware from sending information back to the hacker.

How to protect computer from hackers

Tips to protect from hackers and be safe online

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